James is an assistant attorney general and a state prosecutor with the Office of Special Prosecutions & Appeals in Anchorage. Born and raised in Vermont, he is a 1988 graduate of Boston University School of Law. He came to Alaska in 1989 as an Army judge advocate and was assigned as a military prosecutor at Fort Richardson. After leaving the U.S. Army in 1992, he was hired as a prosecutor at the Anchorage District Attorney's Office. Over the past 20 years, he has handled many homicide cases and has served as a member of the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct and as a Special Bar Counsel for the Alaska Bar Association.